Before Covid-19, business travel was booming. But it was also getting more complicated to manage business travel compliance. For many years, tax and social security compliance for business travel has been a sore in the side of corporates. Many had ignored their reporting responsibilities, but that was changing as governments were getting more connected. Companies were starting to track and report on their travellers and posted worker requirements in Europe were a big catalyst for this – the requirement to register travellers and the penalties for not doing so were spurring companies to implement automated registrations.
But now, with business travel virtually at zero, new ways of working are forming. An extended period of stay-at-home is going to give people time to adjust to holding meetings online. We may even see cameras turning on as default for online meetings. As people get more comfortable with holding meetings from their home office, they may not be in a hurry to get back on the road again.
One thing is for sure, for business travel teams this quiet time can be used to look at their processes, to take the opportunity to put in place better tracking and compliance. The scale of business travel may take some months to recover, but the complexities will be there from the start. In fact, we may be looking at increased complexity – with new corporate requirements to track ‘safe’ travel locations, or better tracking of employee travel history in case new health related travel restrictions are needed. Preparing for this now seems wise and this is where travel workflow and compliance technology can help – speak to Equus today to help prepare for when things improve again.
